


Ghosts

by songsaboutdrowning



Category: Florence + the Machine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Death, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 12:19:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/926335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songsaboutdrowning/pseuds/songsaboutdrowning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Florence was a ghost?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this at 2am on my phone and even fell asleep twice in the middle of writing. So if it doesn’t make sense or the world building is not consistent, that’s probably why. If you see any typos (I honestly had my eyes half closed the whole time), I beg you to point them out to me so I can fix them.
> 
> Hope you enjoy. It’s odd, I’m not gonna lie.

Ghosts don’t talk to each other. I’ve never seen anyone try. We walk around, see other ghosts, and they might even be people we knew in life, but it feels like there’s an imaginary wall between us, and if you even tried to get closer to another like you, you would smash face-first into this invisible barrier before you could reach them.

Everything here is grey. I look at things and I know what colour they should be, but it’s all tinged with sadness. It’s like those five minutes before it starts raining, when the sky changes colour and everything looks a bit gloomier. That’s what this state feels like, one hundred percent of the time.

I know why I died. Know what I’ve done, in a way, but life after death is not what they make you believe. There is no judgement, no heaven or hell, it’s just… whatever. It’s like living, but with no human interactions. It’s like yearning all your life to feel nothing and finally attaining it. You still have thought, obviously, and discernment. You still see what’s going on around you and think “this is sad”, “this makes me happy”, but you’re somehow conscious of the inevitability of it all, and those feelings don’t affect you as much.

When I saw the girl the first time, I almost didn’t realise she was a ghost. Her hair was a shade of silver that could almost pass for blonde. Her eyes looked like they would be grey even among the living, so it wasn’t until I noticed the different tones of slate in her clothing - a parka jacket, a light mesh t-shirt, almost see-through, and leopard print leggings – that I realised that she was like me. A lost soul.

I don’t know if I will be here forever because, as I said, I don’t really talk to other ghosts. I don’t know what their experience of this state is like, what they are going through. Sometimes, I see the same faces again and again; like a local community where you start recognising the people you meet at the bus stop, at the pub, or grocery shopping. But we don’t talk. We don’t even acknowledge each other with a nod of the head. All those ceremonies and conventions are for the living; we don’t need them here.

When I was alive, I remember watching films about ghosts. I remember them talking about unfinished business, about not being able to move on until it was all dealt with. But, personally, I can’t think of any unfinished business of mine. There was  _someone_  - a boy, very tall, with soothing brown eyes - but I cannot interact with living people, so my unfinished business he is not. Besides, I haven’t quite mastered any of those tricks you’d expect of ghosts - moving objects with your mind, rattling chains, slamming doors. The best I can do is walk through things. In fact, I wonder why I’m not just freefalling through the ground, towards the centre of the earth and back out the other side and then into space, into the stars, the moon and then lost forever. A conscience floating in space. God, I would fucking hate that.

The girl is sitting on a bench - not falling through, but actually, properly sitting. I can do that, too; I can go up and down stairs, and I can lie down on things. I wonder if it’s just that our minds know that a bench is solid, so somehow we accept that fact and our ghostly bodies react accordingly. I don’t know; I ask too many questions. I did when I was alive, let alone now that I have all the time in the world and I don’t need to sleep. Now, I just watch. With nowhere to note down my findings, I just watch and wonder, what is the point of all this?

People wonder what the point of life is, but I’m not sure I’m finding much point in death.

I decide to go and speak to her. She’s always in the same spot, like it is somewhat important to her. I know that I can talk, because I tried to open my mouth and sing one time when I was sure I was alone. No living or dead thing around me, just me in an empty car park attempting to sing. It was croaky at first, it sounded like someone who hasn’t spoken in days and is just re-learning how to use their voice, which in fairness isn’t that far from the truth. But then it grew and it came back and now I hum to myself all the time. Sometimes if a ghost walks past whilst I’m doing it who is particularly grey and gloomy, I get a look of disapproval sent my way.

Yep, death really isn’t that much different from life.

“Can I help you?” Are the first words that come out. “You look kinda… new here. I’m Florence.”

She looks up at me and opens her mouth but no sound comes out. She probably doesn’t know she can talk. It’s a  _you have to believe it to achieve it_  kind of situation. But she pushes herself up to sit straighter, and her hands don’t just fall through the bench and out the other side, so she must be doing something right.

“Do you know why you’re here?” I continue. I shouldn’t really be asking so many questions when I’m still not sure she can even find her voice.

“I’m dead,” she says. She sounds almost slightly surprised. But she can’t be, because I have seen her here for a week before I’ve even come to talk to her. So she must have come to terms with her new situation. Maybe she’s not used to having a dialogue any more.

One of those thoughts I’ll regret later flashes into my mind and kicks me in my ghostly stomach.  _Maybe she was never used to having one in the first place._

I think of all the people back in the land of the living - my mum and dad, my sister, my brother - all of them always believing that things were fine with me. We talked, but they didn’t know, and I can’t really say I’ve had a dialogue with them where I wasn’t faking, to a degree. I did have conversations; I did. I just always snubbed the truth in favour of what people wanted to hear.

The girl is definitely not shocked that she’s dead, so maybe she chose to die. She brought it upon herself like I did. Maybe she is a kindred spirit.

“I’m dead too,” I say, although there’s really no need to point it out. I am just as grey as the girl’s clothes and my patterned dress, instead of flowers in bloom, seems to only show petals in varying degrees of decay.

“So, do you know how you died?” I ask.

She nods, hesitates, then nods again.

“Yeah.” There it is, another croaky whisper from her ghostly throat. Her unwillingness to add more reinforces my idea that maybe she brought her death upon herself. But I can’t really ask her, can I? Although there is no Ghost Code that I know of, it feels rude to ask a stranger.

I wonder if it’s like in prison - where you ask each other what you’re in for. People in the ghost world will inquire after cause of death instead.  _Jumped in front of a train. Fell off a building. Was stabbed in the street._ I would never know if anyone had died a violent death. It’s not like ghosts actually walk around with knives still half-lodged in their back, or bullet holes between their eyes like a war wound they can show off. They just look and act like people. Only… less material. And much less interactive.

She keeps staring into space and not meeting my eyes and at that point I want nothing more than for her to become my ghost friend - in fact I wonder if there’s any such thing or if ghosts are too wise to try and waste their time on others. Maybe that’s why everyone keeps to themselves. Maybe it is the one truth universally acknowledged, that being around others usually only leads to bad situations: misery and betrayal. Hence, if you’re a ghost and know better, you’ll just keep to yourself and do whatever it is that ghosts do. Until you resolve your unfinished business. Or maybe not.

“You look cool,” I say, and then, “I have no friends.” Now, I was 17 when I died, yet this sounds like something you would hear from an eight-year-old girl. But it just comes out like a cry for help, when this stranger might be a bit in need of help herself.

“Tell me your name,” I ask.

Things disappear from memory much quicker than people think. It’s the reason why no one ever simply  _dies_  of grief. People forget their pain: it’s what makes them resilient. I ask for the girl’s name in case she’s forgotten it already and is losing her identity. I want her to tell me her story; maybe this can help fill my days. I used to love reading when I was alive, but ghosts can’t hold books. But if I could get people to tell me their stories before they forget how to talk, then maybe my time here would have a purpose.

“What are you, some sort of welcome guide?” She replies sassily. “Not a single other person is giving me the time of day. I’m just a decoration here.”

“Can’t really guide you when I myself don’t know why we’re here. Have you ever heard of unfinished business?”

She nods her head yes.

“Have you got any?”

“Plenty,” the girl says with the shrug of someone who doesn’t want to do anything about it. She stares off into the greyish road with her greyish eyes and she hikes up the hood of her parka.

She has no reason to be doing that. Even if it does start raining, the rain would go straight through her. Why do we care so much about resembling our real life counterparts and keeping old habits alive? Maybe there are ghosts who wish to be recognisable to those they knew in life (provided they’re also dead, of course, because they cannot talk to, or interact with, the living), but not me. I like to keep my distance.

…except from this girl. Something told me to go talk to her. Like she could be the friend I never had in my life. Perhaps, if I had had someone like her, things would have been different. I’m aware it’s pointless to wonder; I don’t even know what she did back when she was alive, but every single person, every variable can make a difference, and maybe she would have been mine.

Maybe we could have played music together and I would have had a best friend who looked past my weirdness. I want to ask her if she plays anything, but her ghostly hand would go straight through a guitar neck, or strings, or the keys of a piano. It’s too late, now. Those are all opportunities missed.

I sit next to her and try to look where she’s looking, to see what she is staring at. There’s a poster at the bus stop opposite, showing a village by the sea. Not much in the picture but a lighthouse and seagulls, yet she looks at it with longing, like she somehow belongs there. And she could go there, if she wanted. Ghosts can walk anywhere since weather doesn’t affect them and they don’t need to sleep. She’d be there in a few days without ever needing to stop for food or rest. If she really wanted to be in the village by the sea, she would be by now.

“You haven’t moved in a few hours,” I say. I know she’s moved in the past, because she has not always been on that bench. I have seen her, on and off, and she caught my eye because whenever she  _has_  been there, she always sat perfectly still. Her expression was so immutable I wondered if she even had a single thought at all. I find it hard to comprehend that not everybody has an overactive mind like mine.

And yet my mind is all I have left. I don’t have any earthly possessions. I will forever be wearing the dress I died in. At first I wondered why we even needed clothes, but then I figured it would be distracting if you were forced to look at other naked ghosts all the time. Not that there’s anything to be distracted from: just walking. Walking, and trying to learn to touch material things, the way they show you in the movies. Trying to float, too, in my case, which I was hoping to do out of sheer will.

What else am I supposed to do? I’m here without reason and without purpose, punished for something I’m unaware of. Maybe this is Purgatory. Maybe, from here, someone higher up will choose if we’ll eventually end up in heaven or hell. Maybe there still is a heaven, or a hell, or both.

“I feel lonely,” I say to the girl with the silver blonde hair.

“Mm-hmm?” she replies. I don’t even feel unwanted, I just think she’s as clueless as I am about the etiquette of ghost interaction.

I had a best friend, in life. Her name was Sophie. Still is, really, as she’s alive and well. Shortly after I died, I walked over to her house a few times. I missed human contact; I used to be very touchy-feely when I still possessed a sense of touch. I would snuggle up to my friends, put my hand around their waist, even lace my fingers with theirs. Sophie was ok with all this; I wondered if she missed me. Some pictures of us were still up by her mirror, but the only other time I really felt my presence in the room was when my name was mentioned in a telephone conversation.

“All this stuff that it turned out Florence was doing,” she said. “I feel bad for not noticing. I always knew she was different, but I never really thought she was crazy. Didn’t know stuff like that actually happened in real life. ”

I shouldn’t have been eavesdropping, really, but being a ghost is boring. My first few days, I would just enter random houses and nose around. But when I realised that it was a Russian roulette of unhappiness, I stopped. I didn’t really need any more negative thoughts to bring me down. They had already been the death of me once, after all.

“Did you have friends when you were alive?”

“Yes. Loads,” she says. Is she bragging? I can’t tell because she’s not even looking me in the eye. I think maybe I misjudged her and maybe she is not here by choice. She seems like the kind of person that wouldn’t let life discourage her that much.

“So you must miss having company,” I conclude for her. It’s cheeky and kind of clingy. That never had good results in real life, so I can’t imagine it doing much better when you’re dead. Here, if you’re stuck with someone, you really are stuck with them forever. It’s no wonder she’s cautious.

“I don’t know if I do,” she says. “I don’t know what I want. I didn’t want to end up here and yet here I am.”

She pauses briefly, then adds, “I feel like I don’t care about anything but also, somehow, that I  _want_  to care about things.”

“Well, the problem is there isn’t much to care about here.”  _Except for me_ , I think.  _I would like someone who listens to me._

“I have never known of any other ghosts that even spoke to each other,” I say.

“So is this special then? Unusual?” She looks about as unconvinced as if I’d told her I can bring her back to life with one click of my fingers.

“Just telling you what I’ve seen. What have you been doing, anyway? Where do you go when you’re not here?”

“Gigs,” she answers, looking sad. “I walk into clubs and listen to music. Except it doesn’t make me feel much. Music used to be the only thing that made me feel alive. Well, I’m not alive  _now_ , I guess.”

I cannot believe that in all the time I’ve been dead, I’ve not thought of going into a music venue. Trying to picture it kind of frightens me: all those bodies passing through you, when you’re used to being solid and bouncing off things. You’re used to the friction of people against people, to elbowing your way through a crowd. You’re used to barriers digging into your ribs. The shock of losing all that, all that physicality, could ruin every last one of my good memories. But I will go with her if she goes. Just to try something new. Even as a ghost.

“You wanna go somewhere tonight?” I ask. “Get into Disco Inferno?”

“Not really my crowd. But if we start walking now, we can get to this one bar I like back in Shoreditch.”

I can’t help but feel that, had I met her when I was alive, we could have been great friends. Maybe I would have fallen in love with her, maybe I would have wanted all of her smiles to be for me. Right now, I don’t even know what her smile looks like, as she has looked lost and vacant the entire time.

“You’re not alone,” I say to her. Really, I’m trying to convince myself.

“Shut up,” she retorts immediately. Like the thought of being the centre of someone’s attention bothers her.

I wish I’d learned to touch material things so I could take her hand and test how her fingers fit in mine.

She gets up abruptly. Brushes her hands on the front of her parka like she’s cleaning them off. Must be a habit, because right here, she has no reason to do that. Dirt doesn’t stick to her hands anyway. Nothing will ever stick to her hands. Not even my hands. I wonder if ghosts fall in love. Or, say that two people die together who loved each other in real life: what happens when one cannot touch the other any more in their ghostly form? No kisses, no running fingers through hair. No warmth to the skin. It must be torture.

Maybe people who loved each other don’t become ghosts. How would I know? I will never know. I was on my own all my life.

I just don’t want to be on my own in death.

“Well, are you coming?” She asks. She smiles then. Her teeth are straight and perfect - her lips full and I almost see a twinkle in her eyes. Her hands go into her pockets - funny how you can interact with parts of your body, but not with the world around you.

“You didn’t tell me your name,” I hesitate. What if this vision’s been sent from hell to tempt me, offering everything I couldn’t have when I was alive? Friendship and promise and most of all, understanding. Because many promise friendship, but few follow through with it, and even fewer understand.

I find myself praying, as I was brought up to do – praying that she is my unfinished business and that I can be hers.

“I’m Isa,” she says. “Pleased to meet you.”

And she starts walking.


End file.
